Rufescent Perception
by Cooked Sashimi
Summary: He just can't bring himself to do it - It's been almost a decade since Ryou has looked in a mirror. Darkish Oneshot


**Disclaimer: I own nothing**

It has been almost a decade since Ryou has last looked into a mirror.

There are always the accidental glances by cars, inside clothing and department stores; and the close calls as the light of the sun reflected the glass of windows or other polished materials. But that's all they really are: _accidental_ glances, _close_ calls; nothing truly substantial.

It's not any sort of handicap or incapability; he simply can't bring himself to do it. To see all of the little changes that he knows are there, that his so-called _friends_ keep missing – the slightly raised ruffle in his snowy mane, the amount of kohl he's reflexively smudged below his lashes (without even the slightest glance at his reflection;) even how he finds his fingers subconsciously stroking knives throughout the day or how his newly elongated canines reflect his growing taste for rare meat fall beyond his acquaintances notice.

All of the little things; the tiny drops of evidence of how he's falling further and further from who he was, the child his parents raised, the child who used to systematically write to Amane-nee so she wouldn't grow lonely, the child that wasn't turning into _him._

Deep down, he knows why Yuugi-tachi doesn't notice.

_It's because they don't care for you, no one cares for such a useless being. Stupid Yadonushi._

Ryou doesn't dignify Bekura's barb with a response, he's sure the spirit will sift through his thoughts when he gets bored enough anyway. Even so, the tomb robber is partially wrong with his thesis, no matter how mocking it may have been. Sure, they don't care for him – he's know that for some time now, they can't care for him if they don't feel they can trust him, and they know they can't trust him. However the lack of credence on their part didn't make them any less attentive as (although they seem to think he doesn't notice,) they studiously examine his eyes for even a slightest sign of sharpening, for a modicum of faded maroon.

Eyes are the windows to the soul after all.

Of course they won't find anything, Ryou knows that – the spirit too, probably – knowing never stopped anything important though, Ryou knows that too as he begins to find his own awareness rather useless.

What his classmates don't seem to understand is how _because_ his eyes are the windows to his soul, his currently halved soul, they will clearly be the last to change – when it's all too late.

He contemplates what he must look like, even though he knows; he contemplates and wonders and sometimes, sometimes he even walks up to the broken mirror in his spare room (the clean one, housing all of his soul-filled dolls) daring himself to look, to _know_ for sure.

But then he doesn't, he simply turns away to the kitchen and finds some practically raw meat to digest.

The spirit, Ryou thinks, must know what's happening. He must be able to feel the collectivity of their wounded half-souls. It's not like it was something particularly subtle, the re-connection of souls, that is.

Then, he figures, its only logical that the spirit, that _Bakura_ is biding his time before the big change – letting all of the little smidgens of his personality flow by without the slightest glance as if to say _"because this isn't important I'll let you stay in control for now Yadonushi,"_ with a heavy implication that the darkness will find its dominance in the end.

Honestly though, Ryou can't bring himself to disagree with the spirit on how their personality will turn out once the soul is fused; Bakura is strong, Ryou is weak, Bakura is capable, Ryou is useless, Bakura has a purpose for the future, Ryou lingers in the past – as if asking to be left behind. _Ask and you shall receive, Yadonushi._

Like a fucking fairy godmother

And when his head begins to throb and he knows it's time he stumbles into the spare room (knocking over several dolls worth of rent from the spirit) to let himself stare at the broken reflection for the first and last time in almost a decade. So he does, he stares at the expectedly erratic bat-wing layers of ghostly white hair and sly smirk framing the heavily kohl-lined amber eyes that slowly find themselves bleeding into crimson.

With his own vision falling into a scarlet tint, threatening to overtake the lucidity of the world he pushes against every screaming reflex with whatever strength his being has left and forces the smirk to morph into a small, sincere smile knowing full well that it will be the last one he ever sees.

Half a second later he allows the vermillion to overtake his senses and falls to the ground.

When the formerly warm eyes snap open, the cardinal shade is distinct and permanent, the smirk everlasting, the hair fitful. A knife is pulled from its pocket and caressed gently – the shadows wavering with each stroke as the smirk widens exponentially.

At last, Bakura Ryou is whole.

**Teehee**

**I wrote this on a plane.**

**Hopefully it's decent, I've been reading way too much YGO fanfiction to not write something of my own and I find that I absolutely **_**adore**_** Bakura Ryou (both pieces of him)**

**Let me know what you think.**


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